


Steve?

by Nerium_Bane



Series: Endgame Missing Scenes & Fix-Its for Stucky [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Endgame Fix-It, Avengers: Endgame Missing Scene, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 07:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18655552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerium_Bane/pseuds/Nerium_Bane
Summary: [ Read inside, letting summary stay Endgame-spoiler free for now ]





	Steve?

**Author's Note:**

> A series of Stucky missing scenes and fix-its for Avengers: Endgame

**Steve?**

**(Soul Mates)**

 

_Steve?_

 

He hears the words like he has heard them before over a hundred thousand times in his sleep. More than a hundred thousand because he has heard them so many times in his waking state, too, that he hears them like hope that will not die, he hears them like regrets that only grow day by day. _Steve?_ He asks, because he only had Steve to turn to when he knew he was turning to dust.

 

Did it work? Did the snap work?  Banner is in pain but alive – but did the snap work, his aching heart demands. He had egged Banner on, even when Lang had been worried and wanted Banner to stop. They couldn’t stop now. They had come too far.

 

And then he doesn’t have time to think about it anymore.  Not until he hears it again, his blood rushing in his ears must be playing tricks, he’s been beaten, he’s hit back, he’s drawing in strength from places inside him that he never knew he could access, the Mjolnir in his hand.

 

_Steve?_

 

So his first thought is that his mind is playing tricks on him again, right in the middle of battle, like the raging pain and despair that will not die.

 

He hears it again, _Steve?_ , he thinks it is another whisper of fear and regret, fuelling his desire to destroy the monster that took Bucky away from him, that took away people who had meant as much to those that loved them as Bucky had meant to him. He feels the pain of the millions, feels the pain of everyone who he failed, feels it like he feels the despair of losing Bucky again multiplied by the remaining three billion.

 

Except this final time, _Steve?,_ is not whisper of fear and regret, it is sleepy disorientation of waking up, and then it happens again, louder, as if he is speaking close to his ear, “ _Steve?”_ as if he is looking around for him, calling for him, the worry marring that perfect brow, ready to do anything to find him, protect him. Steve hasn’t needed Bucky to come protect him and finish his fights in a lifetime, but when he is in a battle fighting alongside Steve, Bucky doesn’t care about that. He is just Bucky’s Steve and Bucky is going to do whatever it takes. “ _Steve?”_  he says, louder, more frantic and then nothing, nothing.

 

He doesn’t have time to wonder if he took one hit too hard to the head. There is a battle he is fighting, there is a monster that needs to be defeated.  He has grown so accustomed to hearing that whisper, that word, that voice, so hopeless to find that it was nothing but his own tortured imagination, that he doesn’t think of it anymore, not until,

 

“Captain, can you hear me? On your left!”

 

He cannot be dreaming. He cannot be hallucinating.

 

And then they are at war.

 

*

 

_“I heard you,” Steve tells him, “when you returned after Hulk’s snap, I heard you.”_

_Steve hasn’t spoken since Tony’s death. Bucky didn’t need him to say anything. Apparently, it has been five years since they had been gone. To Bucky, it seemed like he has just woken up after falling asleep on the battleground in Wakanda. But it has been five years since he turned to dust. Steve looked at him, and Bucky knew that for him, it had felt much longer than five years. A lot happened, more than Steve could say. They have been friends for a hundred years, Bucky doesn’t need Steve to say anything._

_But as Bucky went up to the kitchen after returning from Tony Stark’s funeral, Steve found him there. And it is the first time he speaks to him. They are by themselves. Bucky had left first. The others must still be there. Tony was an important man to many people, Bucky just couldn’t forget that he took his parents away._

_Bucky looks up from where he is fixing himself a sandwich._

_“I thought you went missing, so I called out your name.”_

_And that’s what had been for them, returning from dust. Those that had lived these five years, they seemed to have disappeared, Bucky had been tricked by time. He thinks everything is just as he had left it five years ago. This time it isn’t Hydra, it isn’t anyone brainwashing him. This time he really did disappear for five long years and there is no memory of the interim, there is nothing to make up for it._

_“And I heard you,” Steve says, and Bucky looks at him carefully, he is not saying everything he means to say. There is more he has been thinking of._

_“What is it?” Bucky asks._

_“I heard you when you came back, but you were not there – not where I could hear you.”_

_Bucky’s lip quirks for a split second, he goes back to fixing his sandwich, then takes a bite. “It’s a question for Dr Strange, isn’t it?”_

_“He thinks it is something to do with the soul stone,” Steve replies. Ah, so he has already talked to Dr Strange. That is why his words sound heavier and laden with more meaning than Bucky seems to be catching on. “He thinks it can be because you’re my soul mate.”_

_Bucky really does chuckle then. “Sounds a bit much,” he says._

_“Doesn’t it though,” Steve agrees, picks up the other half of the sandwich on Bucky’s plate. Something feels tight in his throat, he takes a bite but it hurts to swallow._

_“Natasha…”_

_“I heard from Clint,” Bucky cuts him off, his eyes compassionate as they meet Steve’s, Steve doesn’t have to say it. Natasha had survived the snap, Clint had told him, but she didn’t survive it long enough to know that they would eventually be able to undo it. It hurt. It must have hurt Steve much worse. She had been here in the Avengers facility with Steve all along, for all of those five years. And even though all the world had been set right, she wasn’t coming back anymore._

_“Yeah,” Steve is looking at his sandwich._

_Bucky doesn’t know how to make it right. Soulmates, yeah right. It sounds like a bit too much._

_And yet._

_“I called out for you more than once, really,” Bucky says as Steve just holds his sandwich without eating it. “I looked around for you until Strange and his friends got there and they said you needed us.” For a few wild minutes, he had been frantic. As far as he knew, they had just been fighting Thanos’ army. The army was gone but so was Steve and there was something very wrong with the world._

_“Yes, I heard you more than once,” Steve looks at him again, there is something in eyes. He hadn’t looked that burdened when Bucky had found himself again after shedding off the Winter Soldier.  Too much has happened. Steve deserves a rest, he thinks with feeling._

_Maybe it is because they are both from a century ago and best friends since childhood. Maybe that sets their wavelengths right or something. Bucky doesn’t know shit, really, he’s just making it up in his head._

_“Well, gotta ask that ant guy if he heard that wasp lady, or if Clint heard…”_

_“I don’t want to,” Steve cuts him off._

_And then he puts an arm around Bucky, pulling him in, crushing him to his chest._

_I missed you, I missed you so much, I can’t tell you how badly I missed you, he thinks, does not say._

_But Bucky hears him clearly all the same._

_*_


End file.
